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Monday, 17 March 2014

Authored by Mickey North RizzaRisk
continues to be a hot topic for businesses; but like the old adage
about EF Hutton, when the CFO starts talking, people start listening —
or in this case, start strategizing for the future.At a recent Wall Street Journal CFO Network Conference,
attendees noted four critical aspects to prepare for global business
risks: Thinking regionally; Cyber-security; Manage the supply chain; and
Interrelated risks. Each area was well defined, but also left some room
for further thought.Think Regionally –
Companies should align strategies with governments of countries in
which they operate and spend more time developing regional (not global
growth plans). A prime example is Chip Starnes, CEO of Specialty
Medical Supplies, who was literally held captive by his Beijing
workforce. The workers were upset because the employees did not believe
they were treated fairly. The company moved part of its Chinese factory
to India, laid off 35 Chinese workers whom all received severance
packages. But according to the workers, the company didn’t guarantee the
remaining employees who are still employed the same severance package.Cybersecurity –
Companies should tackle their own threats, push for government
intervention and seek pacts between governments on the issue. There
should be a limit on who has access to information. The recent US
Government concerns over the National Security Agencies issues with
Edward Snowden are just the tip of the iceberg on security, not to
mention the intelligence and cyber concerns created by this debacle.Manage Supply Chain
– The supply chain should be part of a regular risk assessment and have
redundancy built in. Also companies need to assess risks in business
processes, so that fragility and volatility of regional economies is
understood. Many companies are shortening their supply chains with
localization efforts that provide more flexibility to manage demand and
supply, thus reducing exposure.Interrelated Risks –
Risks don’t necessarily come as discrete events, so companies must be
prepared for multiple events. The senior level management teams need to
tackle these issues. Businesses know that cause and effect is all
part of their everyday performance. Most concerns are interrelated such
as demand falling off, create less need of supply, reducing revenue and
hurting performance.

Saturday, 8 March 2014

An
Enterprise is a group of people with a common goal, having resources to achieve
that goal; resources include money, manpower, material, machines, technologies,
etc. Whereas planning is a necessary tool which hooks up all resources
together. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) provide platform to integrate all
the business processes of different departments and functions across a company
onto a single computer system that can serve particular needs of the different
departments. ERP combines all the business requirements of the company together
into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database so
that various departments can share information and communicate with each other
to accomplish the departmental / organizational objectives. The concept of ERP
evolved during the last 40 years and today it is considered as an important
requirement to align the operations of business with best practices of the
industry as the modern techniques from Supply Chain, Accounting and Finance,
Manufacturing and Operations segments have been incorporated in the available
ERPs.